


When you're with me, baby the skies'll be blue

by Kavi Leighanna (kleighanna)



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Romance, prompt fills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-19 09:12:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1463800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleighanna/pseuds/Kavi%20Leighanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt fills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous asked - Emily and Rossi arguing after she found out about Emma?

"Am I competing with a ghost?"

Emily leans against the doorway to his office, looking pained and conflicted.

"Don’t be ridiculous."

"It’s really not," she says with a painful laugh. "The way you talked about her Dave, the way you so obviously loved her-"

"Loved. A long time ago."

"Except it wasn’t, was it? She’s your one who got away."

He looks away. It hurts to talk about Emma. It always has. He’s never resented her, begrudged her, heck, he’s never really regretted his decisions about her, but Emily is also right. There were a lot of hurdles that he allowed to get in the way. Hurdles he stopped letting affect him after they’d parted ways. 

"Emma was something special. She will always be special to me." 

Emily’s silent. 

"She taught me a lot of things. She was at the right place at the right time. I needed her."

He looks over and she nods once. He knows they’re not okay. She’s so far from okay. 

"I’m going home."

"I’ll be there-"

"I don’t think you should come over tonight."

He sighs. That’s stupid. And ridiculous. “Emily-“

The anger comes next, hot and fast. “What do you want from me?” she hisses. “The woman you love is a ghost. What the hell does that make me?” 

Her temper sparks his and he pushes himself up as he snaps, “Don’t you dare belittle yourself like that.”

She blinks, stunned. 

"Don’t you dare belittle us like that."

"Us? What kind of us is there, Dave? You and me and a ghost?"

"There is no ghost."

"Bullshit."

"I’m not going to apologize for loving her," he growls. "The same way you will never apologize for loving Matthew Benton or John Cooley. The same way I would never ask you to apologize for the men you’ve loved before. They shape you, change you, built you into the woman you are now. How can I hate them when their mistakes, their missteps, brought you to me?"

"I don’t love them now."

"You do," he argues. "In your own way. Emily, you don’t know how to do anything else."

"Are you in love with her? With your ghost."

"I loved Emma," he says, stepping closer to her, watching the way her fingers twitch at her side. He ignores those warning signs of her still simmering temper and cups her cheek. "I’m in love with you."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> Rossi finding Emily in a bar and them going home together?

He isn’t supposed to find her. He knows that. After their confrontation with the priest, he’s supposed to let her go, let her regroup, let her reevaluate and figure out where her equilibrium is. 

Except he can’t. 

He’s never been good at leaving sleeping dogs lie and Emily… Well Emily’s something else entirely. He feels like he’s figured out what haunts her, what eats at her every day, what drives her to sympathize with every lonely teenager. And he cannot leave her alone after that. Not Emily. 

The bar is dark, like he’d known it would be. It’s dark, it’s almost dank. It’s almost a dirty pub. It’s not a place he’d normally picture her in. 

"You know, the drowned rat look doesn’t usually work for me."

Her smile is wan, barely anything and he can see the crust of blood on her nose. He’s never known her to get nose bleeds. But then again, looking at her, he can’t say he’d have actually guessed the kind of childhood she’d obviously experienced. 

"What are you doing here?"

"Stalking you," he says easily. 

"That isn’t as creepy as it should be. Garcia tracked my phone?"

He doesn’t have to acknowledge that. When her usual haunts had come up empty he’d called their tech. He did not want her alone. 

"I’m fine, Dave."

"Of course you are. You had an abortion at fifteen after moving around for most of your life and became an FBI agent. You’re always fine."

He says it low, quietly, but she hears every word and huffs. The tears are back, he can see and a moment later, the blood starts leaking from her nose again. Ah, psychosomatic. Now it all makes sense. Still, he knows better than to mention it. Instead, he reaches for her glass. 

And immediately winces. 

"You are a woman with much finer taste than this, Emily Prentiss."

That gets a laugh. It’s choked off, but it’s a laugh, he thinks. It’s good enough for him anyway, good enough to help him see that maybe, just maybe, she’ll walk away from this. 

"Come on," he offers. "I have the good stuff."

She snuffles, just a touch, reaches out for a napkin to stem the blood leaking from her nose. “Seriously. I’m fine.”

"You’re not," he says, and he wants to tell her it’s okay, that she shouldn’t be fine, that she should be a wreck and let herself be a wreck and for God’s sake let someone be there for her, but he won’t. Because this is Emily and he’s known her long enough to know there’s no way in hell she’d respond well to that. "At least drink somewhere there’s a bed. I’ll even offer you the master."

"Dave-"

"It’s not a discussion," he interrupts, because it’s not. She’s not okay and he won’t leave her in this, frankly, under-par establishment to drink away her friends’ deaths. He’d stay with her, but he’s serious about his offer for better alcohol. And his is free. 

So he gets a hand on her elbow and all but lifts her up himself. She doesn’t resist - and that bothers him for a whole other reason - and tugs her to the door. 

Because, quite honestly, David Rossi never leaves a hurting colleague to suffer alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ohmypaget asked - Umm maybe Emily comes back and Dave wants her but she is distance because she knows about Strauss and before she left Dave and Em had a relationship Is it okay for you?

Emily’s reunion with Dave is awkward.

Beyond the whole JJ’s been kidnapped thing, she can feel their history growing between them. They don’t hug, they don’t even shake hands. It’s a formal nod across the conference room table. 

And it hurts. It really does. She loved him (loves him, because David Rossi is not just a man you can ‘get over’) and there had been a piece of her that had hoped he would have told her not to move away, not to go to London. But that had not been the case. 

She doesn’t get it, honestly. Her original departure hadn’t been her choice, but it had done something to her, to them. It had broken them and when she’d come back… Things were worse. They hadn’t been awkward, per se, because he’d still supported her, still be one of her rocks while she tried to readjust to everything with Doyle and the aftermath, but they hadn’t been as close. And they certainly hadn’t fallen back into the relationship they’d had before she’d been forced into protection. 

And she’s not stupid. More than that, it’s not like she hasn’t kept up with the team. Penelope had been keeping her up to date and between his ex-wife that he’d wanted to rekindle a relationship with when she had been in DC, Emily knows he’d been with Strauss before her death too. 

The thing is though, the team leaves long before they do. She’s not sure what terrible thing she did to be stranded with him in the bar, but she makes a note to apologize to everyone and everything she’s ever hurt if it means avoiding this situation. 

"London’s good?"

She hums the affirmative. She can’t help think that he doesn’t get to ask her these questions, that he doesn’t get to care. Not when he’s been so blasé about her up to this point. Not when she’s had to watch him with other women when she’s not done with him. And especially not now that she’s thousands of miles away. 

"Treating you right?"

She bites her tongue hard because her gut response is to tell him that London treats her better than he has in the last couple of years. And the worst part is that it’s not even like he’s treated her particularly poorly. He hasn’t been rude, he hasn’t been short, he’s just been… distant. Admittedly, that’s the part of it that hurts more. It’s like dangling a carrot in front of her, giving her hints of what they had and what they could have built again. She refuses to get dragged into it. 

"Your coworkers are good?"

"Dave, why do you care?" she asks softly. "You made it clear that you didn’t want me after I came back. We’re friends, and that’s okay, so just… just stop."

There’s a moment, and then he makes a choked sound. “What the hell are you talking about?”

She huffs. “You basically ignored me when I came back. And then there was Carolyn, Strauss. You moved on.”

"Because you told me to."

"Why the hell would I do that?"

His eyebrow is arched in that infuriating way he has when she looks at him. “You should take that second chance? You don’t remember that conversation?”

"Of course I do," she rolls her eyes. "I had to tell the man I loved that he should go date another woman. An ex. You don’t really forget that."

"If you loved me why did you push me away?"

"Because you already had," she snaps back. "You’d already made it clear that… That the Doyle thing had changed your opinion on me."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You didn’t seem all that anxious to pick up where we left off," she says, looking back at her beer. 

"Because you had just come back from witness protection," he retorts, his voice incredulous. "Cara, you had to adjust to being back, to Doyle being dead. Reid was mad at you, Morgan was mad at you, Garcia was clinging to you like you would disappear again… You had enough on your plate."

"So you walked away?"

"I waited."

She snorts. 

"I waited for you to be ready again. For you to feel comfortable in DC. Because you weren’t.’

She can’t call him a liar for that. It had been a driving force behind her move to London in the end. 

"Then you told me to take a chance on Carolyn. Of course I thought you were done."

She rolls her eyes. “Dave-“

"Don’t." 

Her mouth snaps shut. 

"Don’t belittle it. Don’t tell me you were okay back then and we could have made it work. You had to learn how to be Emily again, without the spectre of Lauren Reynolds over your head. PTSD is real, Emily, and you may not have thought you had it but you went through a traumatic experience. You almost died. Until you knew who you were, I wasn’t going to add to it by trying to make us work.”

"I wanted to make us work."

"Okay."

"What?"

"Let’s do it," he says rolling his eyes when she snorts. "I mean it, Emily. This is me, sitting here, telling you that we can make this work."

Her heart slams in her chest and she knows she’s having a tough time breathing. “That’s insane.”

"Why?"

"Our jobs?" she says with a bark of hysterical laughter. "We live an ocean apart.”

He waves his hand. “Flights are cheap.”

"To London? They’re really not."

He shrugs. “It’s a small price to pay if you want it.”

She swallows. He can’t be serious. He can’t. Because he’s put everything out there, right in front of her, and she’s never wanted to reach for it so bad in her life. “Dave-“

"Emily."

Still. 

"You mean it?"

"I mean it."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

She smiles, it grows slow and steady across her face. “Okay.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> "Why don’t you come over here and prove it?" For Rossi/Prentiss please make it cute?(:

"Why don’t you come over here and prove it?"

A challenge. Emily Prentiss has just presented him with a challenge. A challenge that is, by far, the most pleasurable one he’s ever been presented with. 

But that’s what makes him pause. 

It’s not that her presence in his home is an odd occurrence. Quite the opposite actually. They’ve been spending almost too much time together since Emily’s returned from the “dead”. He hasn’t thought much about it, really. She’s a beautiful woman and one more the most extraordinary people he’s ever met. She baffles him, every day, with her strength and compassion. 

And yes, okay, he is most definitely attracted to her. And yes, it’s been a strange form of torture to have her here as often as she is. She makes herself comfortable too, strips off the layers she hates, even borrows his sweatshirts from time to time. He assumes it’s a lot like Garcia and Morgan’s relationship and since Morgan’s been mad at her, he thinks maybe she’s’s kind of capitalizing on the fact that he’s never judged her. 

"Don’t be ridiculous," he says, because challenge or no challenge, he will not risk her. She’s given no indication that his attraction is reciprocated. Sure, they talk about everything and sure, he’s been her rock in the aftermath of her return, but none of that is grounds for what he wants and he’s not willing to risk what they have. 

But her eyebrow goes up, her mouth twists into that smirk and she says, “That’s what I thought.”

And that does it. He’s in front of her a moment later and her eyes widen. He’d done the unexpected, he realizes. She’d challenged him without really thinking he’d take her up on it. It gives him the last bit of courage he needs to take her chin in his hand and press his mouth to hers. Her hands come to his waist, slide up to wrap around his neck and even though he’s probably too old for it, he gets her legs around his waist and lifts. 

He’s got a reputation to uphold.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked  
> Rossi/prentiss "how long has it been since you last slept?"

"How long has it been since you last slept?"

Emily raises her head slowly. It’s been a long couple of weeks, if she’s honest. Hell, he shouldn’t even be here. No one’s supposed to know she’s even alive, let alone almost immediately climb on a plane to Paris. She can’t be upset though, not really. It’s been nice to have someone familiar in hiding with her. 

"Cara?"

She sighs. “I don’t know.”

"Em."

"He’s out there, Dave."

He tugs her closer, pulls her body right into line with his. She’s still recovering, just the tail end of the stitches. If she twists wrong it hurts, so she shifts against him, slides a naked leg over his. She’s missed him. Their hello had been rough and quick followed by the torturously slow lovemaking she’s come to associate with Dave. She feels beautiful, loved, and it’s been a while since she’s felt that way. 

"You’re safe here. He can’t find you."

"You don’t know that. You don’t know how good he is-"

He’s already shushing, smoothing her hand down her back. She lets it settle her, forces herself to relax. He’s here, against all the odds and all logical thought. She doesn’t want to soil that with Ian Doyle.

But Dave, well, Dave’s not done. It takes him a few minutes but then he put his mouth to her ear. “I don’t know Ian Doyle, but I know Emily Prentiss,” he whispers. “My money’s on you.”

She rewards him, of course, because despite the fact that she is independent and she’s worked so very hard to get where she is, to have the self-esteem she has built herself, it’s what she’s needed. She presses her mouth to his, revels in the scratch of his beard against her skin. She thinks maybe, with the unwavering faith he has in hers, that he’s all she needs.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:Rossi is jealous for Emily. Can you make it? Thank you ;)

The problem with dating an incredibly attractive woman is that there are plenty of other people - men and women - who see the same thing. He’s hard pressed to take Emily anywhere without eyes and sometimes, even hands, following. 

And that’s what happens when he takes her to the launch of his newest book. 

The people who make a habit of these things know who she is. He hasn’t made a secret of her in these circles and, as a writer, his press is not near as intense as a pop star or actor. He’s okay with that. But what it means is that there are plenty of people who aren’t aware he and Emily are perfectly happy together. 

She doesn’t blink and he knows she barely notices. It’s one of the more endearingly frustrating things about her, the fact that she has no idea how beautiful she is. She dances with those who ask, and while he can see the way men and women hang onto her every word, he knows she doesn’t. 

That doesn’t seem to do a damn thing against his jealousy. 

And that’s frustrating in it’s own right, that he knows she’s not going anywhere - neither is he, because he’s not damn stupid - but it doesn’t stop the way his blood heats when he sees another man offer her a dance, when said man pulls her in closer than he’d like. Whatever they’re talking about as they dance has Emily’s eyes lighting up, has passion all but oozing from her pores, so he’s not surprised when she doesn’t notice the way the man’s hand slides down her back and stops too close to her rear for his liking. 

So, even though is publicist will kill him later, he excuses himself from the most boring conversation with some of his investors - he doesn’t call them that, but someone thinks he’s more likely to pay attention if they refer to them in business terms - and finds a side table to set his drink on.

"May I cut in?"

He knows Emily doesn’t think twice about switching partners, and she does it so smoothly he knows it’s easy to see that in another life she could have been a socialite or a ballroom dancer. 

"You’re going to get me in trouble you know," she says, though she has this little amused smile on her face. 

"Oh?"

"I promised your publicist I wouldn’t monopolize your time." She kisses his cheek because she knows how much he hates the idea of his publicist trying to ‘handle’ him. 

"Well, maybe you should have informed your new friend and his wandering hand of such a thing."

"What?" Then it clicks and she gives him an exasperated look. She’s the only woman who can make him feel four years old over a perfectly normal emotion. "You’re ridiculous."

"You’re beautiful."

She rewards him for that with a kiss - actually his reward is the involuntary blush he sees creeping over her cheeks - and then says, “One dance. Then I have to return you to the sharks.”

He gets three because she’s so wrapped up in him that she’s not paying attention and it’s worth the scolding he’ll get for his jealous behaviour.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:Prentiss makes surprise to Rossi while he was busy with his booktour

She slips into the back of the audience, feeling every brush of the trench coat against her thighs. She shouldn’t be here. She should be in DC while he does his annual tour of the nation. But she really couldn’t help herself. Between the idea of surprising him and her other little, well, surprise, it just seemed right. 

She listens to him talk, sits quietly while he answers questions, but she actually sees the moment he notices her. She sits back and waits, watches everyone asking questions, wanting autographed books. She’s a patient woman, and if she’s honest, it’s more than a little amusing. She can see the way his hands twitch, wanting to come to her, to reach for her. She almost does laugh as he waves his handler off. 

"You shouldn’t be here."

She takes his offered hand with a smirk, lets him pull her up and into his body. It’s easy as breathing to settle into the arm across her back, the support his body is to hers. It’s second nature to fit her curves to him and she revels in the feel of it, the smell of him. 

She hums in the back of her throat. “Good surprise?”

He kisses her then, in that unapologetic way that he does. He doesn’t hold back, dominates her mouth, and she lets him. She wouldn’t usually, not in public, but there aren’t many left and it really has been too long. 

"Wonderful surprise," he says when they part and she chuckles as he kisses her cheek before he holds her at arms length. "I’ve missed you."

"You too," she says easily. "Now, I hear you have a hotel room."

"I do," he replies, his hands stroking up her sides. "Do you have another surprise?"

She leans into his ear, nips so quickly at his ear and still gets to hear the way his breath catches in his throat. “I may not be wearing underwear.” 

He grins at her, then turns to his handler. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jane.”

She laughs, feeling like a teenager as he pulls her from the room.


	8. Christmas - post-London

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ohmypaget asked: Prentiss/Rossi

Her appearance at his door is enough of a surprise to be a down right shock. She’s not supposed to be on the continent, let alone in the country, in the city or at his door. But the way her eyebrow rises is painfully familiar, beautiful and maybe a little expectant.

“Gonna let me in?”

Dave does, of course, because yes, maybe she shouldn’t be here and yes, maybe he should be asking a lot more questions than he is but the crux of the matter is that Emily Prentiss is currently kicking off a wicked pair of heels with a relieved sigh right there, in his mudroom. It’s not really a gift horse he’s going to look in the mouth.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have questions. “No London for the holidays?”

“Mother twisted my arm. You know how she’s been.”

Guilty, groveling, trying desperately to repair a relationship that was coasting before. A lot of people did that after she’d returned from the dead. Easter, her mother, her father even, if Dave remembers correctly. He certainly remembers a lot of frustrated nights, a lot of pacing in front of his generous bay windows with just his shirt on while he lounged on the couch.

He misses those days.

But, their relationship had been casual, easy. Both of them had preferred it that way, Emily because she hadn’t really been willing to make such a solid commitment to anything in the aftermath of Ian Doyle and Dave because his failed marriages are quite a blemish on his record. They’d enjoyed each other’s company, been basically dating exclusively, but there had been no promises of the future, no solid agreement that this was something tying them to Washington, to the US, to anything.

He’s not inhuman enough not to feel bitter that she’d chosen to leave, but he’s not dumb enough to look at it as anything other than a choice she’d had to make. They’d always been their own people, led their own lives, but he can’t deny the pleasure that slides through him now that she’s here.

“Gonna say hello?”

The confidence has always squirmed right to the heart of his desire for her. He steps in, blindly, almost unthinkingly, because here she is and he is not dumb enough to let such a gift go to waste. His hands come around her waist and she steps into him just as smoothly, just as easily. Her arms wrap around his neck and her mouth is warm and pliant. He sighs as his hands stroke her back, as he keeps the kiss slow and smooth, exploratory and reassuring.

She hums when they break apart, though doesn’t release her hold on him. Instead, she tunnels her hand through the salt and pepper of his hair, her smile wide and languorous. “That’s more like it.”

“S’that why you’re here?” he asks, even as he moves in, gets his mouth against her neck, her collarbone. The dress she wears is gorgeous, of course, green with a thread of sparkle that shifts every time she moves. Enchanting and hypnotizing in equal measure, not that she needs the help of clothing for that.

“In part,” she answers, tilting her head, giving him space to work. “Maybe I just missed you.”

He laughs into her skin, revels in the shiver it still causes. His fingers play with the zipper half way up her spine, the bare skin above it. He loves her skin. He’s missed her skin. “The feeling might be mutual.”

She steps into him, presses her whole body against his, feels the bulge in his sweats – he’s not dressed like her, no where to go and no reason to leave, of course – and hums her own laughter into his hear. “Might be?”

He doesn’t have to tell her it is. 


	9. Three Sentence Ficlets

**Private Moments**

Their private moments are almost completely silent - void of discussion or arguments or even updates on the day. They like it that way, encased in a cocoon of each other’s company, soft and hard, thrilling and comforting all at the same time. They don’t get too many private moments, but when they do, they hold on and soak up every single second. 

. . .

**Naughty Boy**

Her laugh is low and throaty, his smirk satisfied and smitten. It’s a picture his fans and his coworkers are used to by now, his hand on her hip and hers sliding seductively up and down his arm. They keep the audience enthralled by just being themselves, even if their actions aren’t always suitable for the public eye. 


End file.
